Brief thoughts on Anger

When angry, count to four. When very angry, swear. - Mark Twain

I’ve been thinking about the emotion called anger, usually leading to the desire for revenge for a perceived injustice. This blog is just sort of haphazard collection of random thoughts on the psychology of it. It is one of the seven deadly sins. What makes us insult, gossip or complain about someone else? Perhaps we are insulted first. But suppose we don’t want to confront the person. We give them the ‘silent treatment’. We choose not to talk to them. We said something and now the person has avoided us, avoided looking at us, or won’t talk to us. This is annoying. What have we said? Why do people put others down? That is interesting. We make the conscious decision to demean someone. We talk about someone behind their back? Is this a catharsis? Does it make us feel better or worse? We’ll blackmail and manipulate. Example: we’ll feign being hurt to get the other person to feel bad or show compassion. We con another; we’ll steal something from the person that angered us. We’ll deliberately say things ‘under out breath’, so the other will hear the grumblings and yet we retain plausible deniability.

What is most interesting is this: haven’t we noticed that some will aggravate ‘in order to’ entice anger - and when there is anger, we then patronize. We say: calm down, I was just joking. This is designed to make the other not only feel angry (unpleasant) but petulant. This gives the manipulator the foothold to point out how they’re acting like a child, thus provoking more anger. Also, there’s the person who knowingly says or brings up something that will provoke others besides himself: the one who stirs the pot. What drives this person? Or suppose we find out that someone’s wits aren’t as sharp as another, who excels at insult. The only weapon may be to fake cry. And what a weapon!

Think about the tactic we use when we apologize! Isn’t there a way we can say we’re sorry and use it as a weapon? We’ll say it too much: or, we’ll say it to make the other feel like they’re letting an issue linger too long, which gives us the opportunity to patronize them on the art of ‘letting go of the subject’, or ‘dropping the subject’. We’ll wrong someone knowingly and when anger is provoked, we use the word ‘sorry’ like a panacea. Any further discussion is evidence that the other ‘won’t drop it’. After all, if the person is sorry, they’re sorry, and that’s the end of it. How about the nit-picker, the perfectionist, the one it is impossible to please? Or - even more interesting: the slacker whose sloth is on purpose, and is designed to get a rise out of the criticizer!

Or what about the person who is scolded - rightly - for laziness? This person can then begin to help too much to prove how their previous sloth was justified. This then begs the patronizing question: do you want my help or not? Then there’s the evasive one: the one who is not confrontational and yet puts a burden on everyone around her - she will not argue with you, nor confront you, nor cause any conflict. The fight will happen and instead of settling it will ‘admit you’re right’: not because you are right, but because they know that’ll hopefully make you feel to be a ‘know-it-all’, which sets up the perfect opportunity for the ‘victim’ to lecture you about whatever it is the fight or issue was about.

There’s the more direct kind of anger: picking on others, being a bully, abusing, threatening, slamming or throwing things around, road rage, yelling, ignoring. Seneca - stoic philosopher - thought rage a temporary madness. That’s why the Romans always beat the Germans: the Germans were mad, the Romans tactful. Aristotle saw some utility in it: it prompts some to answer an injustice. Kant thought someone who was never angry was ‘unmanly’, as did Hume.